Who Lives Here, a Go-Getter or Grouch?

By BETTY FREUDENHEIM

Published: March 31, 1988

TO neighbors and passers-by, the exterior of a house speaks volumes about the people living in it, according to a survey by researchers in city and regional planning at Ohio State University.

''We knew when we started that people judge us by our appearance or clothes,'' said Dr. Jack L. Nasar, an environmental psychologist and city planner at the university and the leader of the research team. ''We thought the same might be true of architecture. People make judgments about the appearance of buildings and these cues guide their behavior.''

Survey results showed that people living in farmhouses were perceived as being much friendlier than those in Colonial-style or contemporary homes. And according to interviews with 220 adults 18 years of age or over, in Los Angeles and Columbus, Ohio, Colonial homes are considered the residences of leaders and Tudor-style homes are seen as the favorite ''dream houses.'' People in both cities judged the saltbox to be the least desirable style and highly unlikely to be used for the homes of chief executives of businesses.

The 1987 survey began as a class project for ''Research Methods in Urban Design,'' taught by Dr. Nasar. He and a team of four students asked three questions while showing pictures of homes in six architectural styles (Colonial, contemporary, farm, Tudor, saltbox, Mediterranean):

* Which house would you feel the most comfortable about approaching if your car had a flat tire and you needed help?

* Which is the house of the residents who ''take charge'' or lead a group if all of them work together?

* Which house would you choose if you won a ''dream house lottery''?

''In the post-modernist movement, a number of architects are bringing historical references into their designs as Philip Johnson did with the A.T.&T. building in New York,'' Dr. Nasar said. ''I wanted to show that what architects see as meaningful is not necessarily what the public sees as meaningful.''

The respondents were shown black and white drawings of the houses, each drawing mounted on a 4-by-6 file card. They were told that the size, cost, layout and location of the homes were identical. Each person rated the houses from ''friendliest'' to ''least friendly,'' ''most desirable'' to ''least desirable.'' All were told that there were no right or wrong answers.

Research was conducted in supermarkets selected by the five-member team to represent demographically different neighborhoods. The 118 adults taking part in Columbus and the 102 in Los Angeles ranged in age from 18 to more than 65. Their educational backgrounds were diverse; they included high-school students and professionals.

The survey team was surprised to find that people needed only a glance at the pictures to make instant judgments about who lived in the homes. ''They had no trouble making assumptions about the people who would live inside,'' Dr. Nasar said.

The association of the Colonial style with leadership, he suggested, was inadvertently popularized by the news media. ''The White House is Colonial in style,'' he explained.

Earlier surveys conducted in the late 1970's and early 80's of people's reactions to architectural styles had built-in biases, according to Dr. Nasar. One study, he said, used mechanical drawings that were not realistic. In another, he said, the pictures of the homes varied in height, the number of windows and the size of the garage. To establish that all nonstyle factors were the same, the Ohio State team added windows to some of the houses pictured and even pasted trees next to each house to make the landscapes identical.

At a meeting of the Environmental Design Research Association Conference in Pomona, Calif., in mid-May, Dr. Nasar will present the survey results and suggest that they could guide architects and city planners. When these professionals are designing neighborhoods, he said, they should do so with an understanding of these popular assumptions about residential architectural styles.

In addition to quizzing the public, the five researchers tried to determine whether architects are misgauging public reactions to architectural styles. To do so, they asked 65 members of Columbus architectural concerns to guess what the survey had shown. The architects were also asked for their own responses to the house drawings.

The results highlighted a gap between the professionals and the public. Architects assumed wrongly that most people would choose Colonial-style homes as their dream houses. They also thought that the Mediterranean style would rank lowest with the public.

As for their own preferences, the architects voted overwhelmingly for contemporary homes as their favorites.

The survey was restricted to single-family homes. Dr. Nasar said he believed that additional surveys were needed for other types of buildings.

He also said he had been surprised that the results of the Los Angeles and Columbus surveys were so similar. ''I had expected that Los Angeles and Columbus would be quite different,'' he said. He said further research could determine whether reactions in other parts of the country were also similar. ''We would have to test the other regions to be sure,'' he said.